A Broken Pot Was Found In A London Garden And Sold For Over $60,000 At An Auction
After their grandmother died, a group of grandchildren went to check on her London apartment. In the garden, they stumbled upon a large ceramic pot that was broken into two pieces. It was covered in snails and surrounded by weeds. Even though the pot was in poor condition, the grandchildren could tell that it was out of the ordinary.
If the two pieces were put together, the pot would have been almost four feet tall. It was shaped with abstract flares and unique features.
Their grandmother was involved in the art world, so the grandchildren contacted an auction house in West London to notify them of the discovery.
“From afar, you couldn’t tell what it was, especially as it was covered in weeds,” said Jo Lloyd, a ceramic specialist at Chiswick Auctions.
After looking more closely at the pot, Lloyd recognized the signature style and seal of Hans Coper, a British studio potter who was born in Germany. He mixed abstract forms with functional elements.
The woman who had the pot in her garden had commissioned the work from Coper in 1964. She had accidentally broken the vessel but decided to repurpose the two pieces as planters instead of just throwing them away.
The auction house estimated the pot’s value to be between roughly $8,000 and $13,000. However, the pot went for unexpectedly higher.
At the auction, a 10-minute bidding war ensued over the pot. Individuals from London, Denmark, and New York all fought to win it. Ultimately, it was sold to the bidder in the United States for $63,250, including fees.
“Everyone is thrilled. The vendor didn’t expect the vessel to achieve its estimate, so they are over the moon,” said Maxine Winning, the head of design at Chiswick Auctions.
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“The fact that you can sell a really damaged ceramic for that sort of price goes to prove how collectible and highly regarded Hans Coper is.”
Coper was born in 1920 to a middle-class Jewish family in Germany. During his early years, his father took his own life, and there was a lot of political turmoil. In 1939, he was forced to flee to England as a teenager due to the rise of Nazism, according to a statement from the auction house.
He got his start in the art world after the war was over. He was referred to Lucie Rie, an Austrian-born potter who had also fled the Nazis and was known for hiring other refugees. Under her tutelage, he began crafting ceramic buttons, but she quickly realized his talent and sent him to Heber Matthews to learn clay throwing.
Eventually, Coper and Rie started to make pottery together. Coper was particularly interested in ancient pottery and created works that looked like they were excavated from the ground.
His works have fetched massive sums at auction. His highest-selling piece was an ovoid pot, which went for $900,000 in 2021.
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